[Avshalom]

I mean sure, yeah, but...

https://hn.algolia.com/?query=changes%20brain&sort=byPopular...

so does meditation, walking in nature, inactivity, porn, drugs, focus, menstruation, Alzheimer's, cellphones, the iInternet, The Knowledge, programming, football...

changing it's structure is how the brain reacts to basically any regular stimulus. Thats how it works.

[irremediable]

Agreed. Also, I've not read the paper yet, but I'll be very interested to see the effect size. Lots of sex differences neuroimaging papers rave about significance while ignoring the minuscule scale of effects.

[WalterSear]

Significance == publication, prestige, advancement

Effect power == bury it in the results, give it a one line 'yeah, we noticed that' in the discussion, so the publication reveiwer can't accuse you of missing something.

[irremediable]

Indeed. It's all too tempting -- I've often found myself overlooking it a bit in my own work. When appropriate, I try to summarise key numbers, significance tests and effect sizes all in one table to avoid that problem.

[abathur]

And, perhaps more curiously, I don't see any discussion in the release about the possibility of or attempts to control for what else might be changing in the life of someone _beginning hormone therapy as part of a gender-transition process_.

How much of the change they observe is caused by testosterone, and how much is the expectation that one is becoming more masculine (and the downstream behavioral changes/feedback loop created if the self is _noticing_ changes that reinforce this expectation?) This isn't to say the effect they observe isn't real, but the conclusion they've reached doesn't seem to follow from the methodology discussed in the release.